Low box office totals this weekend once again begged the old chicken-and-the-egg question: Does Hollywood release its second-rate movies in the dead of winter because business has slowed to a trickle, or does business slow this time of year because of the substandard movies? At any rate, the lackluster slate of new releases provided easy targets for critical skewering.

Two more Christian critics jeered the pothead comedy Next Friday, which took the box office crown despite losing almost half its business. Movieguide criticized the movie not only for its offensive content like "marijuana use, laziness and sexual immorality," but also for displaying almost no sense of comic timing." The U.S. Catholic Conference likewise felt that "the cast squeezes out nothing but cheap laughs from the thin material."

Rookie entry Down to You also performed below expectations, taking in less than half of the debut of She's All That, last year's similar young-adult romance that also starred Freddie Prinze Jr. Maybe the over-used formula hurt the newcomer; Down to You was characterized as a "cookie-cutter film" that wraps up all the loose ends too predictably by the U.S. Catholic Conference. Mary Draughon of Preview was more disappointed with the movie's implication "that a casual attitude about sex is universal," since the main characters' long wait for sex "makes the couple something of a novelty among their friends." She finds a small measure of nostalgic worth in the movie, saying "anyone who remembers their first love will find much to smile about." The Catholic Conference, on the other hand, felt the film "romanticizes the thrill of first love."

Since there ...